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You know, today is a really great day. Seriously. Here in Austin the weather could not be more perfect, unless it were raining money. And I’m in a terrific mood, bursting with optimism. No, really, I’m not being sarcastic. I just feel good, and it feels good to feel good, so I think I’ll just go on feeling good for as long as it feels good.

You know what cannot even dampen my mood? The fact that Ireland’s preposterous blasphemy law goes into effect today. That’s the one that fines you €25,000 — which comes to $35,971.25 according to XE.com’s currency converter — if you say or publish anything that’s “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion.” So I guess “There’s nae God ya fookin gormless gobshites!” probably qualifies.

This doesn’t dampen my mood because I find it hilarious. It makes me think that if I could do one thing other than what I’m doing today, which is enjoying the lovely weather in my hometown with my dogs, it would be to walk boldly down the streets of downtown Dublin wearing my “Jesus Did It For The Chicks!” T-shirt. How Ireland thinks it will avoid becoming the subject of international ridicule with this stupidity is beyond me. Hell, they’ll have to block a good chunk of BBC comedy programming right off the bat, unless the government plans to arrest and fine itself. And oh yes, I’m quite sure that the awesome crowd at Atheist Ireland is going to take this ball and run with it!

The spectacle of a Western nation suddenly behaving like some Christian version of Yemen and taking a bold step back towards medieval theocracy like this as we move into the second decade of Century 21, for Christ’s sake (oops!), is, to me, nothing short of riotously funny. Especially when, in the last week, the international news has been full of reports of the Irish Catholic Church’s own shielding-the-pedo-priests scandal.

All in all, a day to make an atheist very, very happy indeed. Happy Blasphemous New Year, everyone! And oh yes, Irish Catholics? Hint: if your religion cannot stand up to free speech, the problem is not with free speech.